The present invention relates to improvements in apparatus for chilling and dispensing beverages, and, in one particular aspect, to novel and improved arrangements for effective air-cooling of a refrigeration-and-circulation system housed in the stand of a miniaturized beverage dispenser which supports a transparent storage-and-display tank, the laterally-apertured stand having a horizontal condenser grid of tubes and fins which, without accessory partitioning, divides the stand interior into two compact stacked housing regions, the upper of which includes a single axial-flow fan uniquely forcing air along advantageous flow paths through the condenser and laterally into and out of the stand.
Beverage-chilling dispensers have become well known in a variety of commercial forms which lend themselves to attractive countertop display of their contents to potential customers in such locations as stores, restaurants and soda fountains. Commonly, the dispenser units each include a small electrically-powered refrigeration system built into a stand or base and serving to chill the continuously-circulated contents of an exposed transparent storage tank set atop the stand. Both from aerating and aesthetic standpoints, it has been found useful to produce a fountain-like circulation of the beverage within the tank, and the motorized pumping associated with that circulation now conventionally involves the magnetic coupling of an impeller in the stored liquid with an electric drive motor isolated from it in the stand below. Efficiency in the compression system of refrigeration requires that there always be ample cooling of its condenser, and both the system compressor and the dispenser's beverage-pumping motor must be assured of avoiding temperature excesses by having their internally-generated heat carried off and dissipated harmlessly. Such cooling and heat-dissipation problems have been addressed elsewhere in constructions which typically utilize more than one motorized fan and/or which rely upon a relatlively large vertically-disposed condenser. The proportions and location of the condenser can be quite critical, because, in general, an important design objective is to minimize the amount of counter space either actually occupied by the dispenser or required to be kept free for adequate cooling circulation of the ambient air. In addition, proper flow of circulated air through the dispenser has in some instances required that costly and unwieldy partitioning or baffling be incorporated into its equipment-crowded base to eliminate pockets of stagnation and to help develop high-velocity coursing of air at sites where needed. Examples of prior beverage chillers and dispensers having fan-induced circulations of air about the mechanisms in their bases include those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,734,357 and 3,060,702 and 3,255,609 and 3,822,565.